Joyful Heart

An Exhibition of Recent Paintings by Ramya Sarveshwar

Joyful Heart is the first online art exhibition produced by New Intelligentsia Atelier. As you visit, you will see how masterfully California artist Ramya Sarveshwar inspires joy and the desire to enter into her paintings. She invites us to join her, to breathe the fresh air and walk along the pathways in the landscapes she paints, to hear our feet falling on the wooden floor as we move forward to smell a bouquet of flowers, to free-fall into her abstract paintings. Ramya gives us the gift of becoming insiders to her landscapes and guests at the tables she sets making her work feel immersive, immediate and contemporary.

Joyful Heart is the title of our exhibition of recent paintings by Ramya Sarveshwar. It is inspired by the pictures she paints and by stories Ramya told me in our interviews. She said that she wants people who see her paintings to feel the joy she feels when she visits the California landscapes she paints.

I feel something deep stirring in me when I see her work and yes, I can call it joy. But her landscape, still life and abstract paintings result in more than a feeling of joy; the best of her pictures inspire pure aesthetic pleasure. Ever Graceful (above) is my case in point. It is one of Ramya’s most recent paintings, an 11 x 14 inch oil on canvas delight. By Ever Graceful, I think she means grace is ever present in nature, in our lives and in our imaginations. All we have to do is go there.

I see Ramya’s work not from the perspective of a contemporary art scholar because I am not that. I look at it from the perspective of an artist admirer and cultural psychologist with ethnographic interests in observing new forms of thinking and seeing emerge in contemporary art (and innovation). All of us hope to discover our own style and evolve what we know painting to be from previous masters. We hope to say something about the world we live in that is unique to our time. We hope to have our work seen and experienced and yes, purchased so that our art careers are sustainable. My goal through New Intelligentsia Atelier art exhibitions is to honor and create international audiences for artists like Ramya who work courageously to achieve artistic styles that are uniquely personal and culturally innovative.

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It is a rare thing in the history of the world that people from all walks of life and economic conditions have the opportunity to see truly contemporary art, that is to say, art that is witnessed while the paint is still fresh. Previously to the age of the Internet, to now, this experience was not available to the general public. I will never forget how disappointed I was when the contemporary art history class I took in 1974, only made it to the 1950’s, not beyond. At that time, art historians only discussed international art that was made in the distant past. Today, the Internet gives us a set of tools that enable us to experience arts and culture as it emerges in society today. We can see what is being made right now across the globe. This makes life very different for us than past generations and has created the possibility for what I call the New Intelligentsia to emerge. By this I mean everyday people from all walks of life who have access to contemporary arts and culture despite the fact that most of us are neither rich nor elite. Ramya is painting now, right this minute. She honors past masters as she combines their styles and adds her own twists and turns to make her style fresh and new. We don’t have to wait 20 years to see what she is accomplishing today. We can see her work within minutes of completion, we can see her style evolve before our eyes, we have access to her emotion and her learning as it happens. The immediate access we have to contemporary art today will surely alter the course of art history and art education. I find this fascinating.

In our interviews, it became clear Ramya experiences the world through her senses and her heart. She told me stories that reminded me of Angelika Domschke, another artist/scientist that creates out of a desire to give. I am beginning to recognize that there is a global creative energy coming from deep feelings of heartfelt compassion for people, humanity and the earth. Ramya grew up in India in an artistic household. She spent much of her young life keeping company with her artist uncle, observing him paint wildly detailed paintings over-and-over again. Today we might call him an “outsider” artist. Painting was what he did as a means of expressing what he could not speak. She said, “I remember seeing a carving that my dad made (in plain soap) of a Hindu God and how I was so taken by the beauty of the form.” Her family would ask her, “Ramya when are you going to start painting?” At the time Ramya didn’t recognize she was an artist. She loved math and was intent to continue her mathematics studies, which she did.

She immigrated to the United States in 1997 settling in southern California. Ten years ago, as her career and family life enabled her to spend more time pursuing other interests, Ramya began to paint. Over this short time she has developed a unique painting style that combines impressionism and expressionism and something “other” that is resonating with a broad contemporary art audience. Her work is getting deeper as she explores new painting territory. She’s a bit daring and quite modern. Ramya is a contemporary painter who is going somewhere.

I truly hope you enjoy Joyful Heart an Exhibition of Recent Paintings by Ramya Sarveshwar. I invite you to social share her exhibit and individual pictures and help me grow an international audience for her work. Select paintings from her show are for sale and accessible at the bottom of this post or through our online shop. Her pictures are small in size, affordable and collectible. It would bring both of us joy to hear from you. Cynthia DuVal